Extension of the familiar is intricate to the process of defining new things in life. With the invention of something new, we tend to equate it with something we are familiar with. That is until we become familiar with the thing itself. For example, our grandparents and others once referred to the automobile as the “horseless carriage.” Of course we no longer do so.
My question is why do people tend to call Web video or video posted online “TV” Obviously Web video is nowhere near the traditional TV experience, i.e., sitting on your couch with a high-calorie drink and high-calorie chips, committing yourself to X amount of time in order to enjoy a show with a time-spot predetermined by network executives and the businesses whose ads litter the experience.
Who wants to do that? Personalization of your media experiences is now mainstream and we want to choose what we watch, when we watch it, and where and how we watch it.
So why are we going down this road of the extension of the familiar? Are we really not yet used to determining our media experiences? It’s not WebTV. We need a new term for this.
—Latham